Fairmount letters re Rec director meeting April 29, 2024

Excerpt: After thorough consideration and review of our policies, we regret to inform you that we are unable to accommodate your request concerning the management and usage of the Fairmount Park Bake Oven.

As we have previously discussed, our procedures require all requests for oven use to adhere to our booking policy and be processed through staff. This approach ensures the smooth operation and fairness in allocation of resources.

From Adam Harris-Koblin, Policy and Project Advisor to the Parks director, May 10, 2024

Barry Ross to Rec director Cathy Vincelli April 19, 2024

Fairmount Park Bake Oven

Brief Background

a. 2019 – two Icemasters, Barry Ross and Ray Bernard (Icemasters being a local neighbors group formed in 1992 to build and operate natural ice rinks) are asked by the City Councilor Mary Margaret McMahon to get an oven and to run it self management Icemasters style.

b. After some time, we determined there was an extra oven at Christi Pitts…we worked out with bake oven leads Jutta Jode and to have this oven moved to Fairmount. Mary Margaret coordinated with PFR to have this done.

c. City refused to move the oven as believed it was not physically possible; Icemasters determined after examining original build drawings, the oven was designed to be moved.

d. 2020 - oven arrives, brought in by a City contractor.

e. May 2021 - self management is fully in place, as led by a small group of 4 local volunteers fully trained and experienced in bake oven cooking:

• Since then there was a huge ramping up for training requests and events planning. To date now we’ve trained 40’ish firekeepers and have had at least 50 events, ranging from neighborhood multi-family picnics, birthday parties and boy scouts events, sometimes 20 attending sometimes up to 150. For arranged events by our firekeepers, other firekeepers are often invited and the accelerated socializations and firing/cooking learnings firekeeper to firekeeper has been extraordinary.

• Self management means also keeping the oven in a state of good repair – this carried out regularly with repair and upgrades. Self Management also provided baking tools, lock up and other equipment needed.

• Under this self management model, the Fairmount oven has been by far the most popularly used oven in the city with our own vast network of trained firekeepers.

f. May 2023 - Barry Ross was directed to meet with Ed Lewis City Parks and the Councillor’s office staff at the Fairmount bake oven. We understood it was to clarify for Parks how some oven access procedures work.

• The meeting was an ambush. The meeting began and quickly moved to essentially a repudiation by Parks of the self management model, so an order to comply was verbally issued. The main reasons for the shut down given by Parks were insurance and reservations, also competence to do repairs and training.

• All of these reasons were challenged as absurd/unreasonable/inconsistent incompatible with initial city request to get the oven; with Parks responding with essentially ‘well that’s just the way it is!’ nonsense.

• Councillor Bradford’s staff and Barry were all stunned but set out to inform all trained 40+ firekeepers that self management had been cancelled.

g. June 2023 - met with Councillor’s rep Kirsten, Parks/Permits to look for self management accommodation solutions. Parks/Permits promised to get back within 2 weeks with proposals….nothing done.

h. Now: there’s limited to no use of the oven ongoing.

Going Forward

Interim Proposal:

Until self management can be fully endorsed by Parks/Permits, we proposed the following to Councillor Bradford, who attempted to engage PFR in discussions to do same.

a. Self management to provide Parks/Permits with an advance fee for an annual reservation of bake oven time blocks. Reserve every weekend for self management events (Fri-Sun)

b. Self Management will use in such blocks not more than twice per weekend; anticipating likely say around 2 events per month, so anticipating 24 +- total annually.

c. Events organized by or through self management shall be for existing Firekeepers and Icemasters.

d. Self management roles shall be ongoing training, access, tools provision, locker and lock up management, repairs and firewood management and liaison with Councilor’s office on all activities.

e. Insurance not to be required as per other Parks activities like natural ice rinks and toboggan hills; City to provide ‘’self management by volunteers, no liability, use at own risk’’ signage for posting at the oven.

f. If others outside our firekeeper community via Parks/Permits want to use the oven Parks/Permits to refer them to self management team and we will fit in/accommodate. But they must be trained.

g. An unnecessary link fence section behind the oven continues to be climbed by kids for climbing on oven roof. Parks have said they’d remove the section…must do as roof continues to be severely damaged. This must be done.

h. Written endorsement to the above interim plan by the City

Permanent solution proposal:

a. We envision eventually moving to ongoing full self management.

b. We will work with City to develop details- City must commit.

c. Self management will mostly coordinate with our trained firekeepers, Icemasters and Farmers Market for events. No permit fees and no insurance charges.

d. We will require visibility to parks reservation system so there is no conflict with others beyond our local community that want to reserve. When such others do attempt to reserve they should be put in touch with the self management team to facilitate access.

e. Ongoing Certification of self management:

o Essentially Deputization

o A few parks can do self management (ie having the team, experience and commitment). Those parks could have a couple of their top persons deputized to carry out self management oversight and avoid all the permits insurance stuff.

o Maybe the qualifications for insurance could be something like a Toronto resident municipal tax paying fully trained adult, plus do an annual little clinic to confirm the citizen’s ongoing oven self management capability.

o Maybe try this with Fairmount as a trial…

o Other parks that don’t have the skills could be wholly or partly supported by Parks/Rec etc until those skills are in place.

o There could be an annual on site clinic with PFR staff and the self management oven team leads to confirm ongoing capability and thus renew the deputization.

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From Adam Harris-Koblin, Policy and Project Advisor to the Parks director, May 10, 2024. To Barry Ross and Jutta Mason

After thorough consideration and review of our policies, we regret to inform you that we are unable to accommodate your request concerning the management and usage of the Fairmount Park Bake Oven.

As we have previously discussed, our procedures require all requests for oven use to adhere to our booking policy and be processed through staff. This approach ensures the smooth operation and fairness in allocation of resources.

Additionally, it seems there may be some confusion regarding the Dufferin grove model. Please note that while bake ovens are present at Dufferin grove, they are managed by the city, rather than directly by community members.

Should you have any further inquiries or require clarification, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Thank you once again for your understanding and cooperation.

Warm regards,

Adam Harris-Koblin

From Jutta Mason to Adam Harris-Koblin, May 13, 2024

thanks for your Fairmount bake-oven email. Two comments:

1. You wrote that you regret to inform me (and Barry Ross) that you are not able to accommodate our request. A puzzle: that request was from Barry, not from me.

2. The second puzzle is bigger. In the PFR phone directory you are listed as "Research analyst 2" for the Enterprise Work Management System, which is described in the last city budget as "requirements gathering, scoping of organizational change, asset data validation and collection, and the introduction of interim tools to manage key operational challenges in the interim while preparing operational staff for EWMS."

That is a mouthful! The puzzle is how all those words apply to the simple fact of a brick oven, fire, and people baking in a park.

An invitation: since bake ovens seem to be included in your scope of work, I'd like to invite you to come down to Dufferin Grove Park and have a look at the ovens there, and a bit of a conversation, on one of these lovely mid-May days. Would this coming Thursday afternoon, May 16th, work for you, sometime between 3 and 6?

I have copied a few more people here, since your Fairmount oven letter has some broader relevance to how Toronto's public spaces will function under this EWMS.

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From Adam Harris-Koblin to Jutta Mason, May 14, 2024

Research Analyst 2 is my previous position, I presently serve as the Policy and Project Advisor in the Parks Director’s office. Directories are typically updated quarterly, which is why my previous position is still listed there.

Can we connect on the phone regarding this issue? I think it would be valuable for me to hear your concerns personally and directly so I can provide the most informed assistance possible in addressing this issue.

Unfortunately, I am unavailable for a site visit at the time you referenced, but I would be happy to find a time that works for you to speak and discuss how to move forward.

I hope we can connect sometime this week.

Please let me know what works best for you.

From Jutta Mason to Adam Harris-Koblin, May 16, 2024

Dear Adam,

I'm not surprised that you have moved jobs -- moving people around frequently is certainly one of the PFR practices. I see that the auditor has had questions about EWMS, so that may have been a tricky assignment. Your current policy advisor assignment is also very complicated, I'm sure. And the bake oven file is one instance where I think a phone chat is not enough.

I'm glad you're going to be talking directly to Barry Ross about the Fairmount oven. That oven is dear to my heart since I was on the hands-on Rec/community oven-building crew at Christie Pits in October 2000, as well as fundraising for it. The Fairmount group have animated that oven in a wonderful way -- at least they did until Parks blocked them.

There are oven concerns at other parks as well. Have a look at our public bake ovens website for an overview of the bigger picture of Toronto outdoor public ovens. And since the community experience of parks is not in parallel to the siloed PFR work structure, the ovens cross over into many other PFR issues.

I recommend you have a look at our recent list of community letters, first sent to Cathy Vincelli for our April 29 meeting and still growing. Some of the responses, including staff responses, are part of that "open-information" project. Today we're starting work on a printed booklet of those letters for distribution at Dufferin Grove and beyond.

My invitation for you to come to the park, for a friendly talk beyond city hall, still stands. I hope you'll find the time. Meantime, if you want to add any clarifications to your responses, for inclusion in our booklet, please let me know before Tuesday.

Content last modified on May 21, 2024, at 04:04 PM EST